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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Giving the burger market a good grilling

Interesting little article in the
Age about the burger chain Grill’d. Not sure about the maths in tip number 2
(pretty sure 51% is greater than 49%), but regardless Grill’d has done a great
service to improving burgers across Melbourne and to the recognition of men’s
health issues through Movember.It takes
balls as big of burgers to go out and start your own business so we tip our
hats to you.

No ads. No celebrity endorsements. No meal deals. No upsizing. Grill'd
Burgers wants a brand without the trimmings.

“We don't believe in loyalty programs,” says founder Simon Crowe. “We
don't believe in highlighting some people to the exclusion of others. We want
the business to be communal in its feel.”

So says one of the few people in history to have a burger named after
them. The 'Simon Says' burger is a grilled chicken breast with avocado, bacon,
salad, tomato and herbed mayo. It is also the source of some chagrin for the
man who left a lucrative career as international brand manager at Foster's
Group to start a healthy burger shop in Hawthorn in 2004.

There are now 51 Grill'd restaurants across Australia employing more
than 500 people and generating $67 million in revenue in the past year, up 68
per cent from the year before.

“I kind of feel like the movement that is Grill'd is not me, it's our
people," Crowe says, "and I sometimes feel a little embarrassed that
there is a focus on me. But I know the business needs a leader. I know it needs
somebody who is its spokesperson.”

It may seem strange to describe a burger franchise as a movement, but it
sums up the 39-year-old Melburnian's grand plans. The dream started becoming
reality one night at the pub, when friends told Crowe to put up or shut up
about his plan to start a healthy burger shop.

Still, there were teething problems. A lease collapsed and Crowe
remembers being racked by doubt, particularly one afternoon in January when he
visited the store after a storm.

“I drove down the street to have a look at it and I was shaking in the
car because there was not a single soul in the street and I thought, 'what have
I done, what am I doing?'”

But Crowe was fulfilling a life-long ambition to own a business.

At Foster's, he recalls “I almost had the perfect job, [except] I was
selling an Australia that I didn't believe in. I was selling a Crocodile Dundee
Australia".

“If I could write my ticket I would love to take Grill'd, with the
Australian character that we have, and take that overseas. That will happen,
but we're not in a mad rush to do it. We've got plenty of expansion opportunity
in Australia.”

He attributes success in part to not contemplating franchising from day
one.

"That meant that we became expert operators... when there were
operational issues and challenges we knew how to fix them and how to make sure
that the business model was robust and strong.”

“So many food businesses, particularly those that are 100 per cent
franchised, will often turn to consultants who say you need to get 20 or 50 or
100 sites to actually become profitable, and they stretch themselves too far,
too thin.”

There are now 22 franchises and 29 company-owned Grill'd outlets. The aim
is for half the restaurants to eventually be owned by franchisees who have come
through a comprehensive testing process, including a psyche assessment.

“What we often find is there are people who are looking for a business
opportunity only, and they tick the business acumen box and sometimes the life
experience, but it's a square peg, round hole if they don't comprehend what
Grill'd is.”

Crowe studied psychology at Melbourne University and sees the parallels
in marketing.

"We need to understand how people think, how they might behave,
what's important to them and meet their needs. So psychology and marketing are
often one and the same, they're just termed differently.”

"The layer effect of all of those things is what's special and
what's powerful, and when we get that right, it's intoxicating. It's actually
almost addictive,” Crowe says.

But are Grill'd Healthy Burgers actually good for you?

Two years ago the Obesity Policy Coalition found a Vegetarian burger
from Grill'd contained more fat than a Big Mac. However, senior policy adviser
Jane Martin says larger portions mean more kilojoules.

“If you're going to choose between the two, I would be going for a
Grill'd burger," McGrice says.

She advocates eating take-away food only once a fortnight, leaving some
room for improvement for the energetic Crowe, who still chomps through four
burgers a week.

Crowe's 5 tips for entrepreneurs

1. Know your business at an intimate level. You need to have enough
knowledge of the day-to-day operations to 'smell test' the genuine insights
from the noise, and recognise any potential drift away from your vision.

2. 51 per cent
business: 49 per cent people. People are your greatest asset – always. While
they will no doubt be your greatest challenge, your team requires the
entrepreneur to direct and steer the business agenda to give its people visibility
into the future and provide them the opportunity to shine.

3. Make your brand the hero of your business and ensure that it is the
filter through which all decisions are made.

4. Choose your
business partners carefully and know what they bring to the table. Ideally
ensure that you are getting more than only capital. A good business
relationship is like a marriage – a journey; full of ups and downs but it's
inter-dependent, and worth the ongoing investment in time and emotion.

5. Passion!
While we applaud it in sport we often ridicule it in business. Passion can be
the most engaging and most intoxicating driver of success to all of those that
interact with you and your business.

1 comment:

We just created an infographic about common mistakes people make when grilling called Come on Baby Light My Fire (I've attached it to this email - you can also see it online here [http://www.jesrestaurantequipment.com/jesrestaurantequipmentblog/grilling-tips/]).

Since your blog was one of the ones that I read while researching the infographic, I thought that your audience might like our infographic, too - and since I know writers are often looking for relevant content to use, I wanted to let you know that you are more than welcome to use our infographic on your blog : )

If you do use it, let me know and we'll tweet out a link to your blog post to our twitter followers (@JESRestaurantEq).

There is some HTML code on our original source post that makes it pretty easy to post, but please feel free to use and post the infographic however you like - we just ask that you put some kind of link back to the source page so if other people want to use it, they can too.